476 Transactions. — Zoology. 



After several failures to do so the ant turned, walked back- 

 wards, and dragged the Coccids into the galleries. We have 

 found nests situated under large boulders lying on fine sand, 

 with no roots penetrating them, which contained several dozen 

 adult females of R. formicicola. It is a common occurrence 

 to find numbers of this Coccid, in all stages of development, 

 attached to roots in the nests. I, however, can only con- 

 jecture that these adult Coccids were brought into these nests 

 by the ants from elsewhere. They walk freely about the 

 ti'acks and courts, but on what they subsist, in the absence of 

 roots, 1 ani at present unable to say. When viewed with a 

 strong lens the walks and courts of the nests of this species 

 exhibit the perfection of workmanship. In some of the nests 

 we have observed groups of minute yellow eggs, together with 

 clusters of those of the normal colour — white or reddish-white. 

 On the 10th October, 1892, we found several nests, all close 

 together, containing clusters of queen eggs, or those which 

 develope into queens, while only a few worker - eggs wei-e 

 observed in the nests. In all ants' nests it is a simple matter 

 to distinguish these eggs, chiefly from their size, and different 

 periods of time required for their development. My knowledge 

 of the latter is too imperfect at present to enter into details of 

 their development. I, however, hope to be able to deal with 

 this question in a future paper. 



M. integrum, Forel, recently described, is the rarest species 

 of the genus— at least, in the neighbourhood of Ashburton. 

 Except in size, it closely resembles M. s uteri, and is of similar 

 habits. I have observed the two Coccids, B. formicicola and 

 D. 'poce, in two nests which we examined, under stones on the 

 river-bed, a few miles above Ashburton. In structure it is 

 a more slender and graceful form than any of the preceding 

 species. At present I am unable to give full details of its 

 habits. 



M. smithii, Forel, is the smallest species of the native Mono- 

 moria. It exists generally in small communities on the river- 

 bed here, and is readily distinguishable from all the native 

 ants by its minute size and clear brown colour. The nests 

 generally occur on sandy situations, among stunted vegetation, 

 which support the Coccids associating with the ants. B. for- 

 micicola associates with them, and is tenderly carried off by 

 the workers when the stone is raised off the nests. In young 

 colonies which contain few eggs it is a common mode of con- 

 cealment to rapidly burrow into and disappear in the fine 

 sand on the bottom of the nest. The smallest nest of this 

 ant we have noticed contained one queen, one male, and 

 five neuters. As the colonies increase in numbers during 

 the summer, dozens of adult females of the mmute star-like 

 Coccid, B. formicicola, are occasionally found leisurely walk- 



